Street Fight Daily: 01.20.11

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal media, technology, advertising and startups.

798 Daily Deal Sites Closed in the Last 6 Months of 2011 (Daily Deal Media)
DDM 2011 Summary Report: The total number of deal publishers dropped 7.61 percent in the last 6 months of 2011. The world has 798 fewer deal sites due to consolidation and startups closing up their virtual shops. Asia saw the largest drop, with 1,348 daily deal sites exiting the industry.

‘Patch May Be A Big Waste Of Money For AOL, But My Dad Loves It’ (Business Insider)
Nicholas Carlson: As bad as Patch’s cost structure is, it turns out Armstrong’s big investment does, at least, have one very important thing going for it. The product is pretty good. I’ve learned this from a trusted though admittedly anecdotal source: my dad.

Online Ads Will Waste $12.4 Billion This Year In the U.S. (ReadWriteWeb)
U.S. advertisers spend nearly $40 billion a year for online advertisements, but 31% of their ads are never seen. That means $12.4 billion will be wasted on U.S. online ads this year. That’s the average across all sites; on some sites, only 7% of the ads were “in-view,” meaning 93% of them went unseen.

Study: Online Ad Spending to Surpass Print for First Time in 2012 (Mashable)
For the first time in U.S. history, marketers are projected to spend more on online advertising than on advertising in print magazines and newspapers. According to a study released Thursday by eMarketer, online advertising is expected to generate $39.5 billion in sales this year — a 23.3% increase from 2011 — compared to a spend of $33.8 billion on print.

Local’s Spreebird Broadening its Approach to Deals (Local Onliner)
Spreebird has been mostly differentiated in the deals space by its profit share with local schools or charities. Users can designate which school or charity they want to designate 10 percent of the deal’s net proceeds for. The site, after roughly six months, has now unveiled a new look that gives it a stronger visual ID that is more feminine (more than 80 percent of its users are female.)